


Penumbra

by preferredmethodofprocrastination



Series: Perigee - The Closest Point in Orbit [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Children of Characters, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Secret Children, Time Tots | Babies (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preferredmethodofprocrastination/pseuds/preferredmethodofprocrastination
Summary: River reflects on all she has made before she goes to the Library.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/River Song, Tenth Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song, Twelfth Doctor/River Song
Series: Perigee - The Closest Point in Orbit [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730518
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Penumbra

**Author's Note:**

> I miss River so much. I like imagining her legacy. PS. Huge thanks to time-baby on tumblr. I used to follow their blog long time ago and found it again. Freya was the name of their Time Tot OC and I internalized that and used it before I ever even found their blog again.

Professor River Song loved the nights she worked late. It was usually Fridays. She stayed late on campus, listened to her students, drunk on the green, and graded their work. Lots of absolute shit crossed her desk, some good stuff, some middling. There were a few excellent students. Those were the ones she let babysit, let have access to some of her extensive private archeology library, most of which was copies of texts they could access at the university library, but with the comfort of her tasteful house and her food and her curious children.

She would enter her house late to the soft crackle of her fireplace, with Anita’s or some other friendly face looking back at her, book in hand, cookie in the other. Payment and dismissal were optional. She had a guest room and most were welcome to sleep there instead of in the dismal student housing. River knew the luxury of a full sized bed and a feather pillow after her time in Stormcage on a plasticky cot with its flat pillow.

That night it was Anita she nodded to. She smiled up at River and then looked back down at the book from which she studied. She’d obviously cleaned up after River’s small army of hurricanes… children others might call them.

The shadow of the Earth crossed Freya’s face when River opened the door. Her eldest slept peacefully amid teenage turmoil, a smile brushed across her face like paint on canvas. River struggled to describe her to colleagues, and upon meeting her they agreed. She was beautiful, kind, caring in a way that River had felt with few but her own father. She studied hard, but made few friends, instead preferred the company of her siblings, her mother and her grad students, and the stacks of books that littered her floor. River could not believe that she had birthed an introvert. While she enjoyed reading, in her youth books had always been a means to an end. She wondered what stories bloomed from her pen that no one would ever read. The carefully shorn sides of her head were growing out, after the Library expedition, River would get out the clippers again, maybe even give in to Freya’s hair dye desires, despite her worry that it would fry her curls. Even after millenia, most hair dyes still couldn’t keep from messing with hair. She knew enough uni students to know that.

In the other bed Dora frowned, some dream frustrating her creative mind. River approached her brooding child and brushed the soft auburn curls away from her face. She’d no idea where the red undertones had come from. The Doctor’s hair was brown, hers golden, but she liked to imagine that some whisper of Amelia Pond’s genes woke in her bones. Dora rolled over and grumbled till River pulled the blanket up to her chin and kissed her temple. She relaxed, still as a stone after the press of River’s lips. She was never still in wakefulness, always running and climbing and reading upside down from the trees, fighting sometimes too, a true wild thing. It worried River, sometimes, how hungrily she looked at the Tardis blue of her journal, or the vortex manipulator she kept deadlocked in the case on the mantle. She knew Dora was hungry for more adventure than she was ready for.

If Dora’s hair was a whisper of Amy, the twin boys sleeping soundly next door were a shout of her. Head to head in their twin beds, their red curls burned softly in the moonglow outside the window. They were a striking pair, seven years old and growing like weeds, with cats eyes, one brown and one stormy grey, and questions aplenty for Anita and the others who they could pester. The other professors would laugh, but students would answer, explain. Her boys would listen, solemn faced and stern browed. They played at puzzles and stratagem and logic, some music. She could only imagine how thrilled the Silence would have been to find them at their fingertips, disciplined little warriors with two hearts instead of a few twists of time lord DNA. She shuddered to think of it too, the chaos they could inflict with their order.

Then there was Rory in the nursery next door. Her soft brown baby curls were growing longer every day, turning a little more auburn, burning gold in the daylight. She whined, a plea which River answered gladly, to breathe in her daughter’s mild scent. She was a sad thing, enormous hazel eyes searching for something. She took a small fist and wrapped it in River’s hair, pulling her closer, seeking the same thing as River, the security of her presence, the realness of her body heat, the sound of three hearts together, breaths matching. She danced a bit, cradling the delicate head and neck, Rory smiled. She’d be three months old tomorrow.

There was a time when River had thought she would be a terrible mother, but she’d grown since then, learned. Freya had been a trial by fire, one third fucking up, one third running from stormcage before her pardon, one third hiding it from the Doctor and her parents. She’d been more efficient with Dora, though had almost been caught, nauseous and anxious in the shadows of her childhood as a weapon, the shadows of monsters. Rory caught her in the caves, in the middle of a bout of overwhelming morning sickness nausea aided by her disgust for the Silence, but they were busy looking for little Melody and he hadn’t pressed too much afterwards. There hadn’t been anyone to care for the twins, no matter how much she’d wished for it. The tall old scotsman version of the Doctor, their father, had been distant then, serious. He was not the same mirthful man who’d spent 24 years with her on Darillium. He changed. Then there was her visit with the youngest one. God he had been sad, confused when she’d said that she’d been to Darillium. His eyes revealed a broken heart every time he looked at her. He’d been a tender, worried lover. Not worried enough, as Rory came after. 

River sank into the rocking chair and rocked slowly, for twenty minutes or so, until Rory was fast asleep once more. She laid her in her crib and watched her belly rise and fall. She shut the door as she left, descended the stairs and grabbed a bottle of wine from the kitchen. She popped it open and grabbed two glasses from her cabinet.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” She asked Anita. Anita glanced up from the book long enough to take the glass.

“After this chapter I should be,” Anita turned the page and scribbled another frantic note.

“Good, no rush. I just opened the bottle,” River sat back in her chair and stretched out her legs.

“I’ll miss them,” Anita said, pausing her writing and her reading.

“Who?” River asked.

“Your children!” Anita exclaimed. River laughed aloud.

“They’ll miss you too I expect,” she sipped her wine.

“Really?” Anita almost dropped her pen at the suggestion.

“You’re their favorite,” River sipped again. “Mine too.” Anita beamed. There were ten minutes of flickering firelight, flipping pages, pen scribbles, the clicks of Anita’s converter putting the notes into her device clouds, then silence. Anita downed her glass and River poured them both another.

“Professor?” she asked.

“Yes,” River replied, looking up at her.

“What do you think is in the Library?” River pushed down the anxiety that had built in her since the Doctor had given her the new screwdriver. She swallowed it whole, like she’d swallowed fear her whole life, and smiled.

“Judging by my previous experience with libraries… I am inclined to say books.”


End file.
